HTML All Book Bloggers Need To Know In Order To Be Successful - Plus Free Cheat Sheets

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

When I first started working with coding, there was a little thing called Geocities.

The website allowed anyone to create a free website. Fansites for anything and everything popped up overnight. Some were good, most not so much. But if you knew what you were doing, you could really create a site that stood out.

During my 'Fansite Years,' I dedicated myself to learning all I could about HTML and Photoshop. I used frames, mastered tables, and dreamed in html. By myself, I coded and designed every single aspect of that website, and turned it into something I could really be proud of.

If something broke, I fixed it. If I couldn't get something to work the first time, I played with the coding until it did. (Always on a separate file so I would never mess up my design irrevocably in my attempts.)
After I drifted away from my Mutant X days (I had a killer Mutant X fansite by the way, and the floppy disks to prove it) I did not touch a piece of coding for years.

But coding has a way of sticking with you. And once you get it, you never really forget it.

Coding Is A Language Anyone Can Learn.

After starting my blog Paper Bindings (formerly Once Upon A Dream Books) I knew I need to brush up on my website skills. I scanned a few HTML classes, and thankfully it all came back to me. Encouraged, I started teaching myself CSS.

Best decision I ever made.

Everything I've learned these last few years has cemented one thing in my mind: I will never stop using HTML and CSS for my blog.

All Bloggers Need A Basic Understanding Of Website Coding.

It doesn't matter what your blog's focus is, what your education level is, or how much you spend on your blog, if you can't use basic coding, you are severely limiting your own potential.

Raise your hand if your blog has ever messed up the coding on a post you edited on the compose screen. *raise her hand*

It happens, and you need to have the knowledge base to fix it.

Links

Links direct you to another webpage, whether it is on the same website or not. And they are exceptionally easy to code.

Images

Image as a link

Images can get more complex by adding the following attributes inside the <img> tag:

border="NUMBER"

alt="What text you want to be displayed if the image does not load"

width="Number(pixels)"

height="Number(pixels)"

*Never direct link to an image from someone else's website. You are stealing bandwidth if you do. Upload the images to your own blog and link to that url. If you are using the image for a signature somewhere else, there are free image website hosts (like photobucket.com) you can use.**You should always add descriptions to every images. Not only does it does it inform your readers what that blank space should be if it fails to load, fully describing the image and what the post is about allows pinning it to Pinterest to be a snap.

Headings

Headings separate text into areas based on content.

I'll be honest here, for years I just selected the heading I thought looked the best and went with that. It wasn't until I read Ashley's SEO Heading Post that I actually understood what they meant to be used for.

<h2>TEXT HERE</h2>

TEXT HERE

<h3>TEXT HERE</h3>

TEXT HERE

<h4>TEXT HERE</h4>

TEXT HERE

<h5> TEXT HERE</h5>

TEXT HERE

<h6>TEXT HERE</h6>

TEXT HERE

*These styles will differ based upon your blog's settings. But the general idea is the same. The lower the number the less important the text falls on the blog's hierarchy.RELATED:Ashley's SEO Heading Post(Definitely a must read if you do not understand headings.)

Lists

List do exactly as the name implies.

Not only can you list anything your heart desires in a nice organized way, you can use the coding to break up the text and give speed readers something to focus on. If they like what they see, they may be more encouraged to read the more detailed text below it.

Pinterest

Paper Bindings

Our tagline is "Life, Books, and Everything In Between" because let's face it, what is life without a book or ten within reach? Stick around with us and we'll share all of our bookish secrets, provide our honest thoughts about the books we read, share some bookish craft tips, and so much more.